Associate Professor Sean Turnell contributes to the article "Myanmar's new old friend" in the Bangkok Post

Excerpt: Japan has been “by far the most vigorous of the countries ‘engaging’ Myanmar since the arrival of [Myanmar president] Thein Sein”, says Sean Turnell, a Myanmar expert and economics professor at Australia’s Macquarie University.

“Japan certainly perceives a special relationship — a mixture of contemporary strategic and aid policies as well as historical sentiment,” says Macquarie University’s Turnell. The sentiment, he said, “relates to a widespread notion in Japan that the country acted as something of a midwife to Myanmar’s independence in light of its (temporary) ending of British rule in the Second World War”.